Microdosing Peanut Butter Could Alleviate Some Peanut Allergies

Science Friday

Science Friday and WNYC Studios

Life Sciences, Wnyc, Science, Earth Sciences, Natural Sciences, Friday

4.5 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 7 April 2025

⏱️ 18 minutes

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Summary

Food allergies are on the rise. For kids with less severe peanut allergies, one potential treatment could be found in the grocery aisle.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Listener supported WNYC Studios.
0:07.2	This is Science Friday.
0:13.4	I'm Flore Lickman here with Ira Flato.
0:16.2	Today in the podcast, why is the peanut,
0:18.8	the bad seed of allergens, and more on the Science of Food
0:21.8	Allergies.
0:23.4	If you are sending kids to school with a lunch every day, like I am, you probably have noticed
0:30.1	that food allergies seem to be more common today than they used to be.
0:34.8	Lots of foods are banned from schools for safety.
0:39.2	Certain iconic sandwiches are peanut butter non grata. I thought for sure you'd laugh at that, Ira. It's a good one.
0:45.7	You probably also know parents navigating food allergies with their kids, you know, sort of anxiously
0:51.3	giving their babies teeny tiny tastes of eggs and nut
0:54.4	butters standing by with a bottle of Benadryl in hand. But what does the science say?
1:00.6	Are food allergies more common than they were a few decades ago? And if so, why? And how well
1:07.2	do we actually understand why certain foods trigger certain reactions in certain people?
1:13.2	We want to hear from you. What questions are you itching to get answered about food allergies?
1:17.8	Are you curious why the humble peanut is such a bad seed when it comes to allergies?
1:22.3	Give us a call. Our number is 877-925-9174. Now to answer your questions and ours is Dr. Scott Citre, director of the Jaffe
1:31.7	Food Allergy Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. Welcome back to Science Friday.
1:37.1	Thank you. Great to be here. So are food allergies on the rise? So I think that's a definite yes.
1:43.3	We did a study back in 1997 when we looked across
1:46.5	the United States to see the rate of peanut allergy and children. It was one in 250. We repeated that
	...

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